


Red Peony

by Aithilin



Series: Bouquet [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: 4+1 Things, Adorkable, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Rewrite, Flowers, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-11 21:39:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10475016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: After all is said and done, Nyx can only remember the little red flowers in the caves of Galahd.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A wonderful birthday wish to [Nicrt](https://nicrt.tumblr.com/) from the friendly local horseman, Death!

Only the Lucian line had a crystal from the gods. At least that was the popular story. The idea that the Astrals, in their wisdom and kindness, had gifted the Crystal and magic to the Lucian kingdom only. That they had walked into the future and made their decision based on men and women and favour that had yet to come into the world. 

No one knew— or believed— that the other kingdoms had their own Crystals. 

No one accepted that the Niflheim Empire had lost their Crystal eons ago. Destroyed by their rabid progress, or the fuel for it. The magic subdued and chained by the promise of technology. Tenebrae’s crystal was locked deep in the forests, the source of all its life and healing and kindness— focused into the living Oracle in tandem with the Lucian Crystal. 

The truth was, the Crystal of the Lucis line was just the largest. The most refined. The one shaped by the Astrals and the people it was gifted to in a work of showmaship and grace and sheer dominance in Eos. 

Nyx knew that Galahd had a crystal. Several, in fact. In the little keeps and crannies where the Astrals of Galahd claimed. They were small, and raw stone— not graced by the blades of Bahamut— not cracked and shining with the life of Eos itself. But there were Crystals, little things that sourced the wilds and fuelled the magic woven into Nyx’s homeland. 

He remembered seeing them. Though it wasn’t until he saw, felt the Lucian Crystal that he understood what they were. It wasn’t until he could see what they should have been, that he understood the small stones scurried away in the Galahd wilds and beneath the shining cities. They had been little cuts of glass and light and— he had grown up thinking they were like the meteor in Duscae, held aloft by the Titan— claimed by the wilds of the mountains and rivers and untamed islands. The crystals had been the call to mages like Crowe, _singing_ with raw magic between the trees and over the tides. 

When he first saw the crystals of Galahd, he was ten, and lost, and it was nestled between jutting rocks of elements. He had been lost in the mountains; climbing up, instead of down, and wandering into caves instead of finding his way to the paths. He had been exploring the Red Stone Mountains that overlooked his home— climbing the cliffs to watch the way the city lights dimmed just as dawn broke. He had wandered higher and deeper, until he could see the glittering veins of rubies creeping to the stone surface deep in the darkness. Until he could see the red gems in the gashes left in the stone by daemons searching for a nest. 

When he first saw the crystal in the red mountains, he thought it was just a ruby. A large one. Snuggly set between the elemental pillars that sparked and burned their warnings. He knew it was special— it glittered and _called_ and _begged_ to be brought out into the wider world. It promised power and sweet dreams. 

Nyx had never wanted power. Not at ten when he was lost in the mountains because he wanted to watch the sunrise, and not at twenty when he had watched the Lucian King decimate a pack of daemons with crystalline light to protect his son. And not when he was thirty and begging the Lucian line to protect itself. 

But he knew that Selena, probably already making breakfast and worrying about him, would like the red flowers that bloomed in the cave’s crystal’s light. He knew that the only way to save his hide from the force of her worry and small fists would be to bring a gift back with him. 

A small creature darted through the cave as he collected some of the smaller flowers. As his hands grazed the shining crystal to carefully pull the soft plants free from the stone. As he set his knife down to get a better grip. A small creature streaked through the darkness and past the cracking, sparking elements. 

But it was gone by the time Nyx had retrieved his knife. 

It was years later, when the Niflheim Empire had left his homeland to rebuild from their ruin— the resources and people drained— that he thought of the little crystal and the cave. That he thought of the red flowers that bloomed in the light of magic and in the depths of stone. It’s years later, after Noct abandons the kingdom he had saved to explore the world he had revived, that Nyx thinks of the caves again. 

It was years later that he was pulling Noct up the side of a mountain, laughing at the way the younger man whined about the heat of it, the work of it— the climb and the light and the ridiculousness of the whole situation. Not that Noct meant any of it; not when they’d make camp for the night on a cliff that overlooked the city in the valley and all it’s newly glittering lights, and Nyx would run a hand over a scar on Noct’s chest. 

The scar was what reminded Nyx of the little crystal and the red flowers. It was the nightmare of seeing Noct’s chest opened, a sword spilling blood the way the stone in the caves had spilt rubies. It was the reassurance of Noct against him, the steady breaths, the reminder that the Lucian Crystal had forced life back into the then-king in gratitude for ending the Scourge, that reminded him of the little blossoms of life deep in the caves. The little red petals that his sister had scolded him for picking, had swatted at him for bringing home, but had lasted for years in the little makeshift vase— right up until Nif MTs broke through their homes. 

He learnt that Noct did not have nightmares here, in Galahd. He could sleep hours longer than Nyx had seen before, without waking in the dead of night from dreams of dead friends and families and failures that never happened. He found that Noct slept better with his phone at hand, stretched out beneath a pile of blankets in their tent. 

He slipped away when he recognised the cliffs from his childhood. When they were near enough that he could see the deep cracks and crags in the stone not far above them. He let Noct sleep, and he retraced the steps of his misadventures. 

Now that Nyx had felt the Crystal of Lucis— had it’s power burn through his body, watched it’s light devour his lover— he knew what the little ruby tucked away in the dark of a Galahdian cave was. He could feel it _singing_ as Noct slept. He could feel it pulse and pull and the raw power it promised if it was just handled by the right person. He could feel it promising him the world. 

In the cave, that had seemed so much larger when he was ten, Nyx ignored the gems and the light. He sat in front of the little crystal that he remembered being bigger, and started working the flowers loose around it. They were a deeper red, than he remembered. He always thought of them as the same colour as the setting sun— that brilliant rust and gold that Selena had loved. Now, looking at them in the light of the still sparking, still burning elements, they looked like blood— the fresh blood he had once cleaned from a dead king’s sword. 

When he left the cave this time, red petals spilling out of his hands, he smiled at the creature as it passed around him in the shadows. “You had better be giving Noct good dreams, little guy.”

Noct laughed at the sight of the flowers, at the way Nyx carefully tucked one on his hair with a grin. At the way Nyx settled at the campfire with the journal Noct carried everywhere and pressed two blossoms between the pages. 

Nyx laughed at the incredulous look the flowers earned him, at the way Noct seemed a child again with the red petals tangled in his hair. 

“They reminded me of you,” Nyx said when he kissed Noct— stroked his thumb over the not-king’s cheek and smiled as a loose red petal landed on his hand. 

And Noct smiled at him, his phone buzzing in his hand (as it had been since they crossed the border into Galahd). “You stole them from Carbuncle.”

“Little guy had it coming,” Nyx teased; “He gets to show up in your dreams.”

“So do you.”

“Really? Why?” At Noct’s shrug, he had to grin. He had to pull the younger man over for another kiss, another soft touch. “I’m right here, your highness.”

“Still going to dream of you, hero.”

“Stubborn bastard.”


End file.
